The present invention relates to a data processing apparatus and a data processing method for processing image data representing patterns drawn on a whiteboard or the like.
There exist conference systems that illustratively allow users to communicate with one another through their terminal devices while proceeding with a conference. In a typical conference system, a camera and a microphone mounted on each terminal device pick up each user's face image and voice and transmit the collected data to other terminal devices in a communication format specific to the system. Given the transmitted data, the other terminal devices output the other users' face images and voices accordingly.
Speakers in a conference often resort to the whiteboard or like equipment to reinforce their presentations or explanations. Typically, however, conventional conference systems of the above-mentioned type have no capability to let the patterns drawn on the whiteboard be transmitted to the other participants' terminal devices for display.
Meanwhile, there exist data processing apparatuses for transforming the patterns drawn on the whiteboard into electronic data. In such a data processing apparatus, locations plotted by a pen drawing patterns on the whiteboard are detected, and the detected locations are used as a basis for generating the electronic data representative of the patterns.
Problems have been encountered where the electronic data thus generated are transmitted from one terminal device to another. The snag is attributable to the reduced efficiency in transmitting a large quantity of electronic data in excess of the resolution of display on the destination terminal device.
Another problem is that the communication format stipulated for use with the conference system imposes constraints on the amount of electronic data that may be sent to terminal devices to reproduce the patterns originally drawn on the whiteboard.